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I don't think she has any special feelings for the ALO Kirito. It's the offline one that she was crying and heartbroken about.

And it's still overdramatized for the sake of absurd drama. And I'm not talking just about this episode, but about this whole "poor poor girl that loves a guy that doesn't see her that way because he has already someone he loves" thing since the beginning of ALO und Suguha's introduction.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dengar

Anyone who's been in her situation will know that moving on is hard, also she is attempting to do so.

Of course it's hard. Nonetheless, I find the focus on this "lovetriangle" thing just pointless and annoying. It leads just to nowhere but pointless and forced drama.

I agree. Suguha's role in the story feels kind of tacked on and doesn't really serve any purpose relative to the rest of the plot. It's just a sidestory, pure and simple. You could probably cut it out without changing anything else about the series. So if it doesn't stand on its own, there's no reason for it to be there. And maybe I'm just a heartless robot but I don't feel much sympathy for her at all.

What makes it even worse (to me), is that she's basically the perfect opportunity to develop the notion that SAO survivors have strained relationships with their families because of the lost time, but that quickly gets overshadowed by her "broken heart". I feel like making her a doomed love interest is a waste of her character.

That's what bugs me, I've seen a lot of people dismiss it as " oh more blatant siscon otaku pandering / oh look another member of Kirito's harem." When it's been obvious from the start the whole narrative point of her arc was tragic Dramatic Irony.

Of course it's handled with all the subtlety of a speeding cement truck, so I can understand why it might not appeal to someone.

I agree. Suguha's role in the story feels kind of tacked on and doesn't really serve any purpose relative to the rest of the plot. It's just a sidestory, pure and simple. You could probably cut it out without changing anything else about the series. So if it doesn't stand on its own, there's no reason for it to be there. And maybe I'm just a heartless robot but I don't feel much sympathy for her at all.

So... If you cut out Suguha, who will Kirito talk to while offline? Who will be helping Kirito while in the game?

But, you know, he should have been able to anticipate that Asuna would at least attempt to find the right combination and put her hours of boring captivity to use. He was arrogant and lax, leaving her with keypad access and no monitoring, no matter how small he thought the odds of her getting the combination were.

Well, that combination would be pretty darn hard to guess, and it's probable that failed attempts might set an alarm. Plus it was also setup such that she could not read the keypad by looking at it. So it *sounds* like a pretty smart torture device -- the keypad is right there, she knows it's the way out, and can see him typing it in, but can't read it. It's pretty cruel, actually. But the programmers never thought about the "mirror exploit". She couldn't look at the keypad and see it, but she could look through a mirror and see the reflection of the code entered. It's a bug, and actually a pretty reasonable one as far as these things go.

This is like how people tried the 5-person flight train thing and nearly got up to the top, and then they put the wall. Programmers don't always think of the crazy things people will try to break the limits they think are in place. So I can't really blame him for this one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oroboro

That's what bugs me, I've seen a lot of people dismiss it as " oh more blatant siscon otaku pandering / oh look another member of Kirito's harem." When it's been obvious from the start the whole narrative point of her arc was tragic Dramatic Irony.

Of course it's handled with all the subtlety of a speeding cement truck, so I can understand why it might not appeal to someone.

I agree with you; there is a lot more to Suguha than "pandering", and her role is critical to this arc, not least of which because it helps emphasize Kazuto's feelings for Asuna. She serves as the bridge between the real world and the online world, and helps emphasize the things that have changed in him in the time since he was gone. It helps us to see Kirito from another perspective than his own (and other than Asuna's, whose we generally already saw). It's also valuable in that sense that she's someone who knew him both before and after, and whose love (and her very participation in ALO) may have been precipitated by his absence. Everything is very closely connected.

I too can understand why some might not like it, but I really strongly disagree with the suggestion that it's "tacked on and doesn't really serve any purpose". Couldn't be further from the truth, in my view.

I agree with you; there is a lot more to Suguha than "pandering", and her role is critical to this arc, not least of which because it helps emphasize Kazuto's feelings for Asuna. She serves as the bridge between the real world and the online world, and helps emphasize the things that have changed in him in the time since he was gone. It helps us to see Kirito from another perspective than his own (and other than Asuna's, whose we generally already saw). It's also valuable in that sense that she's someone who knew him both before and after, and whose love (and her very participation in ALO) may have been precipitated by his absence. Everything is very closely connected.

I too can understand why some might not like it, but I really strongly disagree with the suggestion that it's "tacked on and doesn't really serve any purpose". Couldn't be further from the truth, in my view.

I don't think it's otaku pandering or a harem fantasy or anything like that, I'd call it melodrama for melodrama's sake. I mean, just as his sister she can still serve the same role of being affected by absence, starting to play ALO, etc etc. I don't think she's a useless character by any means. But the extremely specific "I fell in love with this person who loves someone else and now my heart is broken wah wah" bit seems to me like it could be surgically excised without affecting her important supporting role as Kirito's sister. Heck, you could even still have her falling in love with Kirito's avatar and have a similar heartbreak reveal in the end. It's just that her "I fell in love with my cousin while he was in a coma" doesn't really add anything to her family dynamic role, and arguably detracts from it.

So... If you cut out Suguha, who will Kirito talk to while offline? Who will be helping Kirito while in the game?

She's there because the author wants to be there. Otherwise, some girl will show up and guide Kirito. With the same logic, some fans joke that Asuna already beat the game. She's only waiting Kirito's "rescue".

I agree with you; there is a lot more to Suguha than "pandering", and her role is critical to this arc, not least of which because it helps emphasize Kazuto's feelings for Asuna. She serves as the bridge between the real world and the online world, and helps emphasize the things that have changed in him in the time since he was gone. It helps us to see Kirito from another perspective than his own (and other than Asuna's, whose we generally already saw). It's also valuable in that sense that she's someone who knew him both before and after, and whose love (and her very participation in ALO) may have been precipitated by his absence. Everything is very closely connected.

I too can understand why some might not like it, but I really strongly disagree with the suggestion that it's "tacked on and doesn't really serve any purpose". Couldn't be further from the truth, in my view.

While I do agree that Suguha's role is vital in seeing Kirito from a different perspective, I also believe that the removal of the romance would have been beneficial here. As it stands, the romance distracts from that very role of Suguha and it's removal would allow for more focus on how Kirito changed from Suguha's perspective.

But the extremely specific "I fell in love with this person who loves someone else and now my heart is broken wah wah" bit seems to me like it could be surgically excised without affecting her important supporting role as Kirito's sister. Heck, you could even still have her falling in love with Kirito's avatar and have a similar heartbreak reveal in the end. It's just that her "I fell in love with my cousin while he was in a coma" doesn't really add anything to her family dynamic role, and arguably detracts from it.

I think it's the other way around, if anything; her "sister" role is the less critical one here. I think you could rather easily have her be a childhood friend that lives next door. The key point is that she may have had latent feelings before, they were amplified while he was gone, then he comes back; to her time was on hold, but to him he lived an entirely different life. She's been literally next to him the entire time, but couldn't be further away. The fact that they're cousins living under the same roof is more irony than anything else.

I agree with what was said before that they're not exactly being subtle about all the irony, so I can see why some don't like it... but I think Suzuha's doomed romance is a lot more critical to the story (at least right now) than her status as his sister.

Edit:

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Originally Posted by Keroko

While I do agree that Suguha's role is vital in seeing Kirito from a different perspective, I also believe that the removal of the romance would have been beneficial here. As it stands, the romance distracts from that very role of Suguha and it's removal would allow for more focus on how Kirito changed from Suguha's perspective.

I guess I sort of addressed this above, but I feel that her romantic perspective is also relevant to her point-of-view. She is not only coming to terms with her own feelings, but to terms with Kazuto's feelings for Asuna that developed while time was on hold. I think that angle is a key part of what they're showing in the story. Having her just be a normal sister/friend helping him out doesn't strike all the same chords -- at least from my point of view.

(I suppose I should also say that I've been known to have unpopular tastes and to like stories that feature doomed romance. So I can understand that things that seem central and important to me may seem less important to others. It's all in how you look at it. Just trying to explain the way I see it.)